


The Immortality of Turtles

by AirgiodSLV



Category: The Lord of the Rings RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2003-12-24
Updated: 2003-12-24
Packaged: 2019-07-20 09:57:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,718
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16134878
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AirgiodSLV/pseuds/AirgiodSLV
Summary: “I could sleep forever,” he murmured into the cradle of his upturned palms, curving his fingers one-at-a-time in and then out, barely feeling the pull of muscles beneath the skin. “Forever and a day.”





	The Immortality of Turtles

**Author's Note:**

> For the Secret Slasha challenge, requested by Kohaku. Thanks to [](https://mdbfan.livejournal.com/profile)[mdbfan](https://mdbfan.livejournal.com/) for editing.

_2000 – Filming_

 

“Cut!” the unit director called, and Billy looked over his shoulder to see that Elijah had slipped, was now looking blankly into space from the shallows of the water where he had fallen. Elijah was immediately surrounded by makeup artists and assistants, and after a moment Billy realized that the back of Elijah’s latex foot had come loose, just enough to gap when he took a balancing step.

Billy swore, but there was no heat in it, no life. He was aware of Sean’s dismay from the way he turned and rubbed a sleeve against his forehead, but he couldn’t seem to summon up the energy to say something positive. Even knowing it was expected of him didn’t help; it only made him feel wearier.

“Take fifteen,” someone relayed, and Billy thought the ‘thank you’ automatically, although the words themselves froze in his throat. He hitched the sodden cloak around his shoulders more tightly and squeezed his eyes together for a brief moment, fighting off the headache and the pressure behind his sinuses.

“Here,” and a wet-weather foil was passed into his arms; he almost dropped it, his hands reflexively closing around the material but too cold to grasp well. He turned blearily, looking for a place to sit and shiver while they waited. The Fellowship drifted, moving off the set itself and under the partial cover of the equipment canopies. He took three steps and stumbled, his legs numb and his mind fogged with exhaustion.

“Come here,” someone said, and a hand on his elbow tugged him in the direction of one of the set dressing stones, shielded from the drizzle by the overhang of Styrofoam rock. He realized it was Dom several seconds later, eyes focusing blearily on the back of Merry’s wig.

“Cold,” Billy said as they sat, unable to think of another word to express how he felt about the situation.

“Yeah, I know.” Dom’s nose was red, the skin under his eyes darkened blue-gray from makeup and late nights. He didn’t say anything more, just sat, profile cut out in sharp detail by the misted white wash from the floodlights. Billy huddled under his cloak and looked away from the painful brightness of the lights, down at his hands, curled pale and damp in his lap.

“I could sleep forever,” he murmured into the cradle of his upturned palms, curving his fingers one-at-a-time in and then out, barely feeling the pull of muscles beneath the skin. “Forever and a day.”

There was silence for a moment, and Billy could practically feel Dom dredging up the energy to find something to say. “Well, not _forever_ ,” Dom finally corrected, and Billy felt a tingle of warmth in response, knowing that Dom would talk just to keep their minds off of the cold and the wet and the scene that had been dragged out now for over three hours. “Nothing lives forever,” Dom continued, and his hands twitched restlessly at the hem of his cloak, finally settling on a loose thread. “Except turtles,” he added a moment later, just as Billy was groping for something to say. “Turtles are immortal, did you know that, Bill?”

“What?” Billy asked. He didn’t really care about the answer, but it gave him something to focus on besides the ice forming around his ankles. Dom’s voice and watching him tug at the thread, unraveling a few stitches along the hem.

“Turtles. They live for hundreds of years, and no one knows whether they ever actually grow old and die.”

“Of course they die,” Billy said. He was glad to have contributed that much to the conversation. The thread pulled from the material another half-of-an-inch; frayed slightly. He kept his eyes on it, letting his mind wander away to thoughts of food and warmth and sleep and _dry_ , and studied the contours of Dom’s hands in blurred soft-focus.

“Not from old age, though,” Dom insisted, and there was almost an edge of heat in his voice, enthusiasm for the topic. Billy thought that perhaps the fire was only there because of the ice; that if it wasn’t this cold and wet, Dom would never have thought of turtles. But then he could easily be wrong, because this was Dom, after all, and he said things that Billy never expected or understood, sometimes just to say them.

“From what, then?” Billy asked, just to keep Dom talking, to keep the warmth in Dom’s voice and Billy’s skin.

Dom tugged a bit harder, and the thread zig-zagged to a seam and caught. “Oh,” Dom started, and then there was a pause while he tugged ineffectually at the thread and the lines in his forehead creased. Billy blinked at Dom’s face, washed out in the light, snubbed nose and bedraggled strands of wig falling into his eyes. “From predators and the weather and the like.”

“Oh,” Billy replied. He wasn’t in possession of enough information to make the argument, so he reluctantly let the ball drop. His fingers curled again, almost enough to touch the tips to his palms.

“Well, maybe not the weather,” Dom said a moment later, and Billy was surprised by the rush of interest and hope he felt at the words. Some kind of connection; something. Anything to keep them going until they started shooting again. Dom scrunched his nose up, and his breath fogged out like the haze of drizzle in from of the floodlights. “I don’t know if they die from that. They’re whaddya-call-it-thermic. Endo-, exo- whatever.”

“Ectothermic,” Billy supplied drowsily, “cold-blooded,” and then blinked, startled by the remembrance of facts long-ago memorized and forgotten. He wondered what else he knew when his brain stopped working properly and ran on autopilot.

“Only not,” Dom continued, “because they’re warm-blooded in the sun, aren’t they? Like lizards. Same principle. Only cold in England.” And then he sat back, apparently satisfied with his argument, and Billy dazedly watched a drop of water form on the tip of Dom’s nose while he tried to figure out what was fundamentally wrong with that logic.

“I wish I were a turtle,” he heard himself say, and then stopped because he couldn’t figure out why he had spoken and whether he actually meant that. “I wouldn’t be this cold,” he finally concluded, as Dom scrubbed a hand across his face and smeared the water droplet on the end of his nose.

“Sure you would,” Dom countered. “You’d be cold all the way through.” His eyes were rimmed red, and Billy wondered if he himself looked the same way. He didn’t bother insisting that he was cold all the way through, because it wouldn’t make either of them feel better, and that wasn’t what Dom had meant anyway.

He shifted instead, trying vainly to nestle further into the crinkling wrap that did nothing to dry him out or warm his clammy skin. “Yes,” he said finally. “But would I feel it?”

Dom smiled at him, crooked and tired, and then one arm came up and around Billy’s shoulders, foil crinkling with the movement. Billy turned and leaned in so that his forehead rested against Dom’s, noses touching, taking a deep breath and steeling himself against the dull ache fighting through the numbness in his body. “It sounds like the name of a poem,” Dom mused, breath fogging against Billy’s face. “’The Immortality of Turtles.’ Do you think we could get Viggo to write it for us?” His hand moved over Billy’s back, a bright comet’s trail of warmth, and Billy shrugged.

“Places,” someone on the set called, as if from a million miles away, and Billy held on for a heartbeat longer before pulling away and standing up. Dom laughed when he swayed, and Billy made himself chuckle as well, feeling the tingle spread slightly into his hands and legs where the chill of rain had taken hold. And this above all else, he thought, was what friends were for.

 

 

_2001 – Reshoots_

 

Discordant electronic ringing woke Billy up, made him open his eyes to see the blurred green glow of his digital clock and the dim outline of the telephone on his bedside table. The pounding in his head made him close them again, grope for the phone to stop the shrill noise while stars danced under his eyelids. “Yes?” he answered, voice sleep-burred and sticky.

“Bill?” Elijah’s voice, chirpy and cheerful. He sounded wide-awake, which made Billy instantly suspicious. He tried opening his eyes again to look at the clock, squinted at the fuzzy-edged numbers.

“Fuck,” he said, and Elijah’s laugh rang in his ears. He could hear the hum of a car motor in the background now that he was more awake, and the crackle of static that meant Elijah was calling from his mobile.

“Yeah, we thought you might need a wake-up call when we missed you at breakfast. Is Dom with you?”

Billy frowned, winced away from the light as he turned it on and glanced over at the other side of the bed. “Yeah, he’s here.”

“Cool. We’ll see you on set in a few.”

“Yeah,” Billy replied, still blinking at the back of Dom’s head, which poked out from beneath an afghan borrowed last night from the living room couch. He rang off absently, one hand reaching to shake Dom awake. “Hey. We’re late.”

“Hm,” Dom replied coherently, and snuggled down into the blanket until all Billy could see of him was tufts of wheat-blond hair. “Promise me breakfast and I might consider getting up.”

“I’ll buy you a danish,” Billy promised, already swinging his legs out of the bed. The almost-hangover sloshed sluggishly in response, and he put one hand up to hold his skull together while he glanced about the room in search of shoes. He didn’t remember drinking this much, in his time away from Dom. Now it was all coming back to him.

“Mmm, toasted Viggo,” Dom’s voice rumbled, muffled by the blanket. “Might be worth it.”

“How about a shower,” Billy reminded him, running a hand through his own lank hair and wincing. “We have wigs today.”

“Shit.” Dom sounded much more alert now, and Billy smirked as he clambered out from under the afghan, fingers tangling un-coordinated in the holes. “How long?”

“Fifteen minutes. How fast can you wash?”

“Not that fast.” Dom stretched, joints popping with startling volume as he twisted his arms behind his head. “One of us isn’t going to make it.”

Billy hesitated, weighing the itch of his scalp against Dom’s obvious bed-head. “You go,” he said finally. “I’ll just tell them I forgot.”

Dom’s eyes flickered, glanced at the bathroom, and Billy, and back. “Fuck that,” he said finally, starting around the bed, and one hand caught Billy’s wrist on the way past, pulling him along. “Grab a towel.”

“We can’t…” Billy began, and then started laughing. “They’ll never let us forget it.”

“So we don’t tell them,” Dom returned, and grinned back. “Military guys do it all the time.”

“All right, give me a minute,” Billy conceded, freeing his arm and going to grab clean clothes randomly from drawers. “Towels are in the cupboard.”

When the water started, he hesitated again, took a moment to consider the sheer weirdness of it, but there was really no way for him to back out gracefully, and he did need to wash his hair. Showering with his best friend seemed like an acceptable solution, given the circumstances.

“Swear to me that Orlando will never learn of this,” Billy warned mock-seriously, as he pulled off his shirt and shivered slightly. “Otherwise I may never live it down.”

“To the grave,” Dom promised from behind the curtain. “Now get in here before I use all the shampoo.”

“You wouldn’t,” Billy challenged, stripping off the last of his clothes and tugging the curtain aside. Dom chuckled, and Billy flinched away from the spray of water suddenly redirected at him. He climbed into the stall before his brain could talk him out of it, and Dom’s wet fingers pressed the soap into his hand.

“I might. This is good shampoo. No wonder you always smell so good.” Billy laughed at the gleam in Dom’s eyes, the lather that clung to his ears. He ducked under the spray, careful to leave Dom enough personal space, and ran his hands through his hair until it clung wet to his scalp.

“I have good water pressure as well,” Billy joked, and tried very hard to keep from openly staring at Dom’s body. It was strange, being around someone naked, especially when he hadn’t particularly wanted to see them that way. He found himself stealing glances without thinking about it, assessing and comparing based on covert glimpses of flesh.

Dom’s fingers shooed him out of the water, back into the corner so he could soap while Dom rinsed. And it was much easier to look when Dom’s eyes were closed, head tipped back to sluice the suds from his hair. Billy’s eyes traveled without his brain’s permission down the length of Dom’s body, and as awkward as the situation still was, he felt a bit better for having looked. After all, they were both naked, and that was a hell of a lot less embarrassing than being naked alone.

“Here, pass that over,” Dom said suddenly, and Billy felt the slide and slip as he offered the soap, swore as he grabbed after it and missed, and it landed with a thunk at his feet. Dom crowed laughter, and the heat in Billy’s cheeks faded somewhat as he grinned in return.

“I’m not going after that,” Billy stated firmly, a giggle building in his throat at the mischievous twinkle in Dom’s eyes.

“I don’t mind,” Dom replied easily, shaking strands of hair back from his face. “I’ll just wait until you finish.”

“Some friend you are,” Billy snorted, but relief took all of the edge from his words. “Now move over so I can wash.”

 

 

_2002 – Press Junket_

 

It had only been a few months, Billy told himself. People didn’t change all that much in a few months. Friendships didn’t fizzle out just because the people involved happened to be living and working on separate continents. There would still be plenty for them to talk about.

He kept telling himself that the entire way to the café Dom had named, deliberately not thinking about the unexpected awkwardness of their last conversation. He repeated it on his way down the street, inside the door, and out the back where the server assured him that Mr. Monaghan was indeed waiting.

Then he stopped in his tracks and started laughing.

“Bill,” Dom greeted him cheerfully, waving one hand lazily in the air. Black-painted nails and bright silver rings caught the light and glinted, the same glint in Dom’s eyes when they crinkled up in a smile.

“What’s all this?” Billy asked disbelievingly, eyes raking over the tailored short-sleeved shirt, the ripped jeans, the silk tie, the…scarf. Dom looked like a thrown-together scarecrow from a Tim Burton movie, but with more style.

“I’m a metrosexual,” Dom announced, with an expansive gesture that brought the fringe of his scarf perilously close to the surface of his drink. Billy laughed harder, glad to see that Dom was grinning amiably rather then taking offense, because he wasn’t at all sure that he would have been able to stop. “Talk to me,” Dom commanded, like the sultan of the coffee shop, and Billy recovered enough to take a seat and order a cappuccino with nutmeg and whipped cream.

“How have you been?” Billy asked, eager to catch up on all of the details he’d missed. “How is L.A.?”

“Not bad.” Dom’s fingers twirled a coffee stirrer, head tilted to the side as they looked each other over. “Elijah’s a blast, and we’ve kept in touch with some of the others…Viggo mostly, and Orlando when he can.” Dom flipped the stirrer so that it tapped the surface of his coffee, ripples spreading in rings. “Do you ever want to learn another language?”

“You speak German,” Billy pointed out, feeling his brow wrinkle in confusion.

“No, no. I mean like Tahitian, or Swahili. Zulu.” Dom’s eyebrows rose enthusiastically as he spoke, stirrer jabbing decisively in Billy’s direction.

“You want to learn Zulu?” Billy echoed blankly, although he could still feel the smile in place. This was going much better than he’d feared, after all. Dom was still quite clearly…well, Dom. There wasn’t really an adequate description for the man sitting across from him, tossing highlighted bangs away from his eyes and chewing meditatively on a coffee stirrer.

“I want to learn _something_ , I’m just not sure…hang on,” Dom said, and Billy heard the trill of Dom’s phone when he pulled it out of his pocket. “Hello? Hey, man…no, I’m at breakfast with Billy. Coffee. Whatever. Yeah, that place. Hey, how long are you…?” Billy was momentarily at a loss, the way he always felt in this situation, trying not to eavesdrop but really unable to do anything else. He tried to tune the conversation out by humming quietly and studying the chips in Dom’s nail varnish.

“Yeah, later,” he finally heard, and the click of the phone as it snapped shut. “Elijah,” Dom said by way of explanation, and Billy nodded and smiled but couldn’t quite bring himself to ask for any further information. The niggling had started again, that feeling he always got now when Dom mentioned Elijah, or Elijah mentioned Dom, ever since they had moved in together. The _what-if?_ question that was always in the back of his mind but never on his lips, because he ought to know better, and it was really none of his business, right?

He’d felt the pressure of the question for a long time now, pressing against the back of his teeth. He’d been waiting for an opening; a line; a segue into the topic that wouldn’t make it obvious how long he’d been thinking about it. The urgency was increasing with every new facet Dom showed, every time he did or said something that made Billy wonder if they knew each other anymore at all. It distracted him from their conversations just like it was doing now, as Dom launched into some tirade about how tipping shouldn’t be included in the bill because it was an art form, really, and why didn’t people understand that?

“Did you and Elijah ever…?” he asked abruptly, cutting across the flick of Dom’s fingers and a stinging witticism regarding waiters. And really, he couldn’t have been less subtle if he had tried, but the relief of having finally gotten the words out seemed to overwhelm both embarrassment for having asked and nervousness over the impending answer.

Dom just stared at him, a moment of unreadable standoff, and then he dropped the stirrer onto the table and dabbed his fingers on a napkin. “I thought you’d already know,” he commented at last. He glanced up again at Billy through hair that had grown long and wild, rubbed his hands on designer jeans artistically torn.

“Why?” Billy asked. He wondered for a moment why all of their conversations seemed to involve him asking questions and Dom providing answers, when he normally felt so in control of his life. When the reply didn’t come immediately, he busied himself with sugar packets and sunlight, didn’t look across the shadow-dappled table. “It’s not like we’ve ever talked about that sort of thing,” he pointed out defensively, and tried to make up for the edge in his voice by casually rearranging the spoons next to his saucer.

“I know,” Dom answered, quiet and thoughtful, and Billy almost forgot not to look up at him. “That’s why.”

“This is for you, sir,” someone interrupted politely, and Billy barely glanced at the waitress as she set the coffee in front of him; used the moment instead to pull himself together and cast about for another subject.

“ Did you go to that game last week, then?” he spoke up a half-second later, smoothing every outward sign of seriousness from his face. He could act with Dom sometimes, because Dom let him, and whatever had or hadn’t happened with Elijah honestly didn’t matter in the grand scheme of things, and moreover wasn’t any of his business. They didn’t talk about those things. And at least now he had asked.

Even if he still didn’t have any answers.

 

 

_2003 – Post-Premiere_

 

“Do you think that women feel empty, after?” Billy asked, and thought a moment later that his self-censors must be malfunctioning today. Dom was looking at him with a patented expression of delighted shock, obviously trying to decipher what had prompted the question. Billy didn’t volunteer the information that he’d thought of it based on a porn shop they’d just passed, a girl in a rather stunning fur coat that flared nicely over her hips, and a larger-than-life promotional photograph of Viggo as Aragorn on the side of a passing bus, because the combination bewildered even him.

It seemed strange to actually say something like that out loud, to Dom. For all that they were young guys, the subject of sex rarely came up seriously. Dom smiled, a wood-sprite’s grin full of mischief and fun. “Not with you, I don’t think. They wouldn’t have the time to get used to it.”

Billy cast about half-heartedly for something to throw back, but Dom just laughed harder. “My prowess in bed is off-limits for discussion,” he stated firmly, wondering if his blush was noticeable against the wind-reddened skin of his cheeks and nose. “Some things are sacred to a man.”

“I wouldn’t mind though, if I were a woman,” Dom said lightly, window-shopping as they walked so that his face was turned away but reflected in glass panes. “I’ll bet you’re a great kisser,” he continued, just as Billy was about to de-rail that line of conversation as well, and Billy’s mouth went dry; slight metallic tang in the back of his throat, and if this wasn’t on the list of forbidden topics, then it bloody well should be.

“You should know,” he shot back a second later, regaining some ground and putting himself back in control of the situation. “Is there anyone in the cast you haven’t kissed in front of a camera?”

“Just you,” Dom replied cheerfully, and that stung and twisted even though Billy knew it wasn’t true. “And John,” he added as an afterthought. “Although I probably could have if I’d wanted.”

“You’re daft,” Billy accused, and turned a corner so that Dom wouldn’t see his frown. He heard Dom jog ahead a few steps to catch him, and by then he had let the momentary surge of jealousy and irritation blow away with the swirling wind. “What will you do when there are no more cameras?” he asked, and berated himself for the touch of bitterness in his voice that Dom would probably pick up on and overanalyze in a heartbeat.

“There will always be cameras,” Dom replied casually, breath huffing cold into the air. “I just have to keep finding new men.” His eyes danced, skittered sideways to peek at Billy. “And I’m keeping you in reserve, just in case.”

Billy snorted, confused by the glow of warmth that by all rights should have been quenched completely by the memories of Viggo and Dom touching tongues; the light in Elijah’s eyes when Dom pecked him goodnight after dinner; the whoop of surprise when Dom had dipped Orlando and kissed him, right there in front of a screaming crowd of fans. It was just the way Dom was; exuberantly affectionate. With everyone.

“Hey, the movie’s playing in that theater across the street,” Dom suddenly announced, and there was no need to ask _which_ movie, because there was only one for them, at least for the next month or so. Billy glanced over, just long enough to read the marquee, and then went back to studying the window displays of the stores they were passing.

“Come on, let’s go see it,” Dom urged, and before Billy could get out the word ‘no,’ Dom had him by the elbow and was pulling him into the crosswalk.

“Are you crazy? It’s not like we haven’t already seen it a dozen times. And that’s not a great place to go if we don’t want to get mobbed…” It was too late for that, though. Dom had that eerie light in his eyes that meant he had made up his mind, and they had already joined the short queue in front of the box office.

“Two, please,” Dom told the ticket girl, and she gave them a bored once-over before her eyes widened and her lips parted slightly.

“Come on…” Billy pleaded quietly, trying to discreetly free his arm from Dom’s grip. “Let’s just…”

“Thank you.” Dom pulled him out of line and into the theatre, waving the tickets triumphantly. “She didn’t even give me a discount,” he remarked, “but that’s okay. It’s a good movie.”

“Worth the price,” Billy agreed blandly, before his sense kicked back in. “Hey, wait…”

“Come on, Bill. One more time.” The crazy gleam in Dom’s eyes set off the red spots in his cheeks from the cold, so that he seemed to glow.

Billy found himself grinning before he could stop, and reluctantly shrugged. “All right, fine,” he acquiesced, and Dom grinned wider.

“Let’s pretend it’s a premiere, yeah? Only without Viggo and Elijah to steal the thunder.” Dom tugged his coat into place and whipped the long end of his scarf over his shoulder. His chest puffed out proudly, and the grin settled into a satisfied smirk.

Billy laughed, full and surprisingly real, and tried to school his features into something more befitting a movie star. “Is this the red carpet, then?” he inquired politely, nodding to the dimly lit hallway leading past the concessions stand to the individual theaters.

“Of course it is.” Dom swept majestically past the popcorn line, earning quite a few shocked stares from the other patrons. “And look…” he said suddenly, as they turned the corner that led to their screening room, out of sight. “There’s a camera.”

“What…?” Billy started, but as he turned to look, he felt Dom’s fingers tangle in his hair and pull him back, off-balance. _What…?_ he thought again, before realizing that his hands were braced against Dom’s chest, and Dom’s hands were holding the back of his head, and Dom’s lips were pressed firmly against his.

Billy wondered briefly what this kiss would feel like if he had shaved that morning; if it would still be this rough and scraping and earnest, saturated with Dom and the line they had just crossed without a second thought. He held on for a split second longer, knowing that any minute now someone was going to come around the corner and see them, and no matter what he had thought before, this was not something that he wanted to get out to the papers.

“What…?” he asked again as Dom let him go, settling him on his feet with a hint of mischief in his toothy grin. Because the question hadn’t been answered yet, really, even if he was no longer sure what the question was. His lips felt swollen and guilty, and he imagined that his skin bore the scraping of Dom’s stubble across it, where it felt like fire had licked over his chin and mouth.

“I was just waiting for the right moment,” Dom said carelessly, adjusting his scarf and scrunching up his nose in a way that made him look five years younger. “It’s all about timing.”

Billy just stared at him, at the wrinkles in the corners of his eyes that told him Dom was nowhere near as blasé about this as he was trying to make Billy think, and the way his fingers nervously picked at the fringe of his scarf, twisting the yarn between shaky fingers.

And then Billy laughed.

“Timing,” he agreed, and reached out to pull Dom close to him, to feel his heartbeat for a second before turning to go into the theater. “Come on, we wouldn’t want to miss the credits,” he offered conversationally. “I hear this is a really good movie.”


End file.
